Wayne County's Former Psychiatric Complex Reopened for Investigation
30712 Michigan Ave, Westland, MI 48186
Age
Family programming variable; Free Roam Fridays 18+ with valid Michigan ID
Cost
$$
Programming priced separately; check eloiseasylum.com/book-now for current Free Roam Friday, history tour, paranormal investigation, and escape room pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Multi-floor early-20th-century institutional building with stairs and uneven surfaces.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1839 · Wayne County Poorhouse · Early Tuberculosis Treatment Center · Pioneering Radium Oncology Site · Mass Unmarked Burial Ground
The Wayne County Board of Supervisors established a poorhouse in Nankin Township in 1839, transferring 35 residents from a smaller facility in Hamtramck. The complex was renamed Eloise in 1894, taking the name of the on-site post office, which had been named after Eloise Dickerson Davock — the daughter of Detroit postmaster Freeman B. Dickerson. By the early 20th century the institution had absorbed the functions of a poorhouse, a psychiatric hospital, a tuberculosis sanatorium, and a general hospital, and operated as a self-contained municipality with its own fire and police departments, post office, power plant, bakery, working farm, and rail and trolley connections.
Eloise physicians pioneered radiographic diagnosis, radium oncology, and outdoor tuberculosis treatment in the early 1900s. Census records show roughly 10,000 residents at peak occupancy during the Great Depression. The psychiatric division began closing in 1977; the State of Michigan transferred the last patients in 1982 and closed the general hospital in 1986. More than 7,100 patients are buried in the Eloise Cemetery in unmarked plots identified only by numbered concrete blocks.
Most of the original complex has been demolished. The Kay Beard Building, named for the longtime Wayne County Commissioner who advocated for preservation, was rehabilitated as a public-access venue. After John Hambrick purchased the property in 2018, his team developed the building into a haunted attraction, escape room, history tour, and paranormal investigation operation now recognized as one of the largest such venues in Michigan. The Eloise Cemetery remains under Wayne County stewardship and is listed on local historical markers as a site of unmarked graves.
Sources
Public reports from the Kay Beard Building cluster around the upper floors, where former patient wards have been left largely as found. Tour guides and investigators have logged footsteps in empty corridors, doors closing on their own, and what witnesses describe as the sensation of being touched on the shoulder or arm in the long central hallway. The basement, which once housed morgue and storage functions, generates the most equipment-based readings during organized investigations.
The site's historical scale shapes the reports. Roughly 7,100 patients are buried in unmarked graves in the Eloise Cemetery on the south end of the property; investigators and tour participants frequently reference this when describing the sense of presence on the grounds. The 2023 ClickOnDetroit reporting on the unidentified graves connected the active preservation of the cemetery to the paranormal interest now centered on the Kay Beard Building.
Fox 2 Detroit profiled the haunted-attraction operation when it opened, framing the venue as a dual project of historical preservation and theatrical entertainment. Investigators visiting on Free Roam Fridays have produced extensive video documentation, much of it focused on apparent voice phenomena captured on personal recorders in the upper-floor wards. Operators frame these accounts as witness testimony rather than confirmed activity.
A three-hour guided tour of the Kay Beard Building and grounds covering the complex's history as the Wayne County Poorhouse, psychiatric hospital, tuberculosis sanatorium, and self-sufficient county complex of seventy-five buildings.
Saturday-evening guided investigations in the Kay Beard Building. Guests use provided or personal equipment to document reported activity in the upper-floor wards and basement corridors.
Adults-only self-paced access to the documented paranormal hotspots inside the Kay Beard Building. Guests bring their own equipment and explore without a guide schedule.
An on-site escape room set in a padded-cell scenario that uses Eloise's institutional architecture as backdrop. The Heist is a second escape-room offering on the same booking page.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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